


Spill

by exyking



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Neil Josten is an emotional drunk, Neil Josten vs. emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exyking/pseuds/exyking
Summary: His mother had always told him that a man who couldn’t run was as good as dead. A man too drunk or too high to see the danger around him wouldn’t even feel the knife between his shoulder blades or the gun between his eyes before he was bleeding on the ground.But things were different now. There was no danger here. At least, not enough that he had to be afraid all the time. Caution was in his nature, but he wasn’t alone anymore. He had Andrew, all the foxes, and the walls of fox tower itself between him and anyone who would wish to do him harm.Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, that was enough for him to let go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Literally the tamest thing i've ever written.
> 
> The hugest of thank you's to @theordinaryvegan

Neil wasn’t a fan of inebriants. He had a rocky relationship with alcohol at the best of times, and would characterise his acquaintance with any other form of drug to be downright hostile. Some of it was to do with what Andrew had done to him, before such things as trust and hate and an ever-increasing percentage. Most of it was from fear.

His mother had always told him that a man who couldn’t run was as good as dead. A man too drunk to stand or too high off his face to see the danger around him wouldn’t even feel the knife between his shoulder blades or the gun between his eyes before he was bleeding on the ground. The beating that followed a high school party stint when he was sixteen was harsh enough to ensure he would never forget that.

But things were different now. There was no danger here. At least, not enough that he had to be afraid all the time. Caution was in his nature, but he wasn’t alone anymore. He had Andrew, all the foxes, and the walls of fox tower itself between him and anyone who would wish to do him harm.

Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, that was enough for him to let go.

Drinking wasn’t entirely foreign to him. He was no stranger to the buzz from a bottle of whiskey. Memories of a gas station bathroom, the pain of hastily done stitches, and his mother’s hoarse voice telling him to keep drinking while she pulled needle through skin, made sure of that. But drinking to excess, for the purpose of it, that was still strange.

He had to remind himself that he didn’t have to stop once he felt the heat in his cheeks, once his thoughts started to feel a little heavier, a little funnier. He had to remind himself that he had decided to do this, just tonight, because he wanted to.

Andrew slid the tumbler across the increasingly sticky table, elbowing Nicky in the stomach before the already drunk backliner could make a grab for it. Neil caught it and cradled it in his hand, watching the way the amber liquid sloshed around the glass. He smiled at it, at everything it represented.

“Drink your fucking whiskey, Neil,” Andrew said.

With a smirk and a wink, eyes locked with Andrew’s, Neil did.

He felt the intoxication in stages: the first was a mild buzz, making everything warm and easy, even Nicky’s ridiculous antics. He laughed quicker and for longer, his attention wandered more freely, the filter between his brain and mouth was lowered a little.

The second was tipsiness: befuddled thoughts trickling aimlessly through his mind, his speech a little slurred and usually only shaping nonsense. His tolerance of Nicky’s antics turned into joining them, to Nicky’s unconcealed delight. He attempted to show Neil a dance that he was personally offended Neil didn’t already know, something about ass shaking and booty-busting that unsurprisingly ended with him in Erik’s lap and their hands roaming to places indecent for public discretion.

Matt and Dan humoured his directionless rambling with bright smiles on their faces, sharing half a bottle of vodka between them, delighting in the way Neil seemed to let himself go as he usually couldn’t. He may have had an embarrassing moment when he tripped over a fold in the carpet and nearly fell face first to the floor, but was miraculously saved by Matt quite literally catching him in his arms. He may have stayed in those arms for a little longer than was strictly necessary following that, patting Matt’s face and murmuring nonsense. Dan seemed to think it was hilarious.

Proper drunk-ness wasn’t achieved in the upperclassmen’s apartment. Once Allison and Dan started doing body shots and Kevin challenged Aaron to a drinking contest that no one else would dare attempt to participate in, Neil retreated quietly back to Andrew’s side.

Andrew, who had been drinking sparingly in accordance with an unspoken agreement that one of them would always remain sober enough to watch the other, had apparently tired of watching the others embarrass themselves in their steady descent to incoherence. He downed the last of his first and only drink before taking Neil’s hand and the bottle of alcohol, and whisking them away to the roof.

The mood changed once they were up there. Where being drunk with the foxes had felt warm and fun and was filled with laughter and carelessness, being drunk and alone with Andrew felt different. The warmth was there, but it took a different shape, a nameless shape. Neil’s chest suddenly felt two sizes too small. He had no idea what else to do but to collapse on the ground beside a seated Andrew, his back against the cool concrete, facing the dark starry sky. He had no idea where else to look but up at the silhouette of the blond man above him. He had no idea what else to think but that if this between them was nothing, then Neil would never want to be anything else again.  

At some point, Andrew nudged Neil’s head onto his lap, and his fingers made their way into his hair. Later, he lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence while Neil continued to sip at the bottle.

Being properly drunk was a little scarier. The world was spinning, and Neil couldn’t stop feeling like he was on the edge of choking on that nameless emotion lodged in his throat. He wanted so badly to reach out and touch, to run his fingers over every inch of Andrew’s skin, to worship the most intimate parts of him, to give to him all that he had ever given Neil and more. His fingers twitched with the thought of how it would feel.

“Stop that,” Andrew said, breaking the easy silence.

“Stop what?”

“Thinking.”

Neil giggled, a ridiculous noise that bubbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. The sound was so uncharacteristic of him that Andrew’s brow furrowed with concern, which only set Neil off further. He clamped his hand over his mouth, but nothing could stop the laughter that shook him, nor the sounds of gasping and squeaking and huffing that he somehow produced.

It was long minutes before he rediscovered any semblance of calm, by which time he had a rather unattractive case of hiccups and tears of mirth wetting his cheeks. Andrew looked somewhere between wanting to slap him to his senses and on the edge of breaking that stern, permanent expression of apathy with what Neil could swear was the twitch of a smile on the corner of his lips.

“Andrew,” he said, when he could speak again.

“Neil.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before.”

There was silence between them, then. Different than before, heavier perhaps. There was something in Andrew’s expression that Neil didn’t understand, nor could hope to decipher with the world so dizzy as this. He ached to know what it meant, what thoughts were in Andrew’s head. He was desperate to know what he felt.

With all his inhibitions lowered to the point of non-existence, Neil raised a hand and reached out.

Andrew watched him warily, the path of his fingertips to the soft skin of Andrew’s face. He was tense, as he always was when touched. Neil couldn’t think of a time when Andrew had ever touched him without a hint of tension in him. It made him unbearably sad, for a moment.

Andrew didn’t pull away, didn’t move at all when the gentlest ghosting of Neil’s fingertips played across his cheek, over to his jaw, and down to the tip of his chin. His eyes stayed locked with Neil’s, watching him with caution, but with curiosity too.

He moved then, subtly, and Neil was jolted back to himself. He realised, with an exaggerated sense of panic, that he hadn’t asked Andrew for permission to do any of this. Knowing that, he lifted his hand away.

“I didn’t ask,” he said, voice quiet, as though he was afraid that loudness would shatter the moment and send Andrew running. “I’m sorry.”

Andrew’s hand darted out to grab his before it could retreat further, holding it still for a moment before he took a breath and drew the fingers back to his face. He allowed Neil to cup his cheek, allowed him to trace the shell of his ear and tug on the tips of his hair. He allowed all of this with the knowledge that there was no version of Neil that existed who would ever so much as touch his cheek with less than the ghost of an impression when he hadn’t asked.

Perhaps it shouldn’t’ve, after everything, but it settled something in him.

“What am I on now?” Neil asked, thumb brushing the crease of Andrew’s nose.

“134%”

Neil giggled, a quieter version of the embarrassing mess of before. Andrew drank up the noise like it was the whiskey Neil had been shotting.

“Shut up, Neil,” he said, but there was no conviction in it.

“Make me.”

Andrew moved closer, leaning in until they were but a hairsbreadth away from touch. “You’re drunk,” he said then.

“Yep,” Neil grinned, “I’m drunk, and you’re going to kiss me. Just one kiss, nothing else, just that. Just one. Because I want you to. I want you, Andrew. I want you so fucking badly right now I-”

Andrew had heard enough. He closed the distance and pressed his lips firmly against Neil’s, allowing them to part the barest inch and swallowing Neil’s sounds. It was chaste, where their kisses were concerned, but no less intense, no less filled with want and something Andrew was determined to name as ‘hate’.

Andrew pulled away too soon, but Neil was only grateful he had given as much as he had. He was allowed to settle back against him, head on his lap as it had been before, staring up at the stars and the blond man above him, allowing that ridiculous smile to stay on his face and that warm feeling to linger in his chest.

He wouldn’t do this often, conceding control in place of a carelessness that he barely knew what to do with. Only with Andrew, only when he knew he would be safe and protected and free to do as he desired without untoward judgement. But it wasn’t so bad, he had to admit, when he could giggle and laugh and feel, like this.

The calm quiet between them was shattered when Neil hiccupped suddenly, which sent him into another bout of ugly giggling. Andrew wouldn’t admit it under any amount of duress, but his lips may have twitched up a little wider at that. Less than a smile, maybe, but enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog this mess [here](http://exyking.tumblr.com/post/154624006503/neil-wasnt-a-fan-of-inebriants-he-had-a-rocky)


End file.
